Actress, singer and writer Nina Kristofferson will bring her one woman show about legendary jazz performer Billie Holliday to the Charing Cross theatre next month for a strictly limited eight week run.
A musical cocktail of songs and stories from Holliday’s life, The Billie Holiday Story will play from 1 April following its sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a subsequent UK tour.
The Ben Woolf-directed production explores the highs and lows of the singer’s career and the haunting memories that plagued her, punctuated by some of her greatest hits including God Bless The Child, Lover Man, Strange Fruit and Don’t Explain.
Last seen in London in High Society at the Regent’s Park Open Air theatre and in the West End, Kristofferson first played Holliday on stage in I Cover The Waterfront – The Spirit Of Billie Holiday at the Nottingham Arts theatre in 2008 and went on to premiere her self-penned The Billie Holiday Story in 2011.
Speaking about the project, Kristofferson said: “Billie’s unusual timbre tells a story like no other jazz singer. Her phrasing and timing is heartfelt as she takes you on a journey which encapsulates her many influences including prostitution, the cops, doing time and the effects drugs had on her life. Her relationship with men, her work, the abuse she suffered by those who took advantage of her. What drove her and finally killed her.”